The Conservatives are once again moving to cut off debate on a piece of
legislation. This one contains elements of added Internet surveillance.

Joe Oliver is promising "tax relief". Great. Took us years to get back to a "balanced budget", better start cuttin'. I wonder when his "You're either for these tax cuts or you're a radical tax terrorist" speech is scheduled?

Another Conservative spending scandal. How thick do you have to be to
break spending rules the way things are going right now? Don Meredith
expensed a trip to Washington for some kind of prayer meeting. After it
was specifically not approved. Business Class. With his wife. Yeezus
H. Chris. Three MP's went along as well. Elizabeth May did the whole
trip for $980 though...less than what Don Meredith claimed for hotel and
food.

The F-35 is delayed again. This time due to software. I'd imagine this
means costs will go up as well. Time to jump aboard the gravy train!

It's odd how far out of their way the Conservatives go to block harm reduction strategies, scientific drug use, etc. Not only here, but on the world
stage. They can't stop harm reduction here, so why not stop it
elsewhere? Insane.

Monday, March 24, 2014

I've been struggling to figure out why I'm so troubled by this whole "badge of honour" thing over Russia banning certain Canadian politicians from traveling to Russia. John Baird here. Irwin Cotler here. Everybody else here. There are just so many reasons why this is an insane thing to do.

I think first and foremost, our politicians actions have shown us how ridiculously useless our own sanctions on Russia are. We ban you and you make jokes so you ban us and we make jokes. Nobel Peace prizes for everybody.

Next, everybody hates childish name calling. Worse, everybody hates childish name calling from politicians. Now have politicians throw down childish name calling while there's a real international crisis going on and it's just a gigantically ridiculous enterprise. I expect these jackasses to take things seriously and this doesn't give the impression that they are.

It's funny when the Conservatives launch an attack ad, and it makes you
think "Hey, that's actually a pretty good idea!" Somehow, I think the
Conservatives spending a lot of money to convince us that Justin Trudeau
will legalize marijuana might backfire.

I don't know why this never came to me before. It took wolf killings to do it. Christy Clark is the Canadian Sarah Palin (this is good news!
I actually tried to put the "h" in the last name, not the first.
Things are good when you can't remember how to spell "Sarah Palin").
Now, I know this is a pretty unfair comparison to make to any human
being. But hear me out. The simplistic folksy sayings. The love of
natural resources. The unexpected rise to power. Quitting politics to
become a political pundit. A distrust of science. Killing wolves. It
all fits.

This is what happens when you ignore science. Wait. No. This is what
happens when you use some science to create a frankenstein monster and
then ignore warnings that science presents with you. Big Agriculture
made a rootworm "proof" corn and it turned out badly. There was another
way, though. There's always another way.

Monday, March 17, 2014

My favorite section of my favorite article of the week. At one iconic meeting in 1974 the Norwegian government announced to a
delegation of oil companies that they were raising the level of taxation
on petroleum profits to 90 per cent from 50. After the shouting had
died down, the minister expressed disappointment that some of them did
not walk away from their offshore leases. "We should have taken more,"
he admonished his bureaucrats in full view of the enraged oil
executives.

Former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page speaks about forecasting
recessions, fighter jets, cuts to libraries and science, old age
security and on and on. Very interesting. He does not paint the
Conservatives as any sort of open and transparent.

Of course Stephen Harper thinks it's unacceptable for the Truckers to be striking. How dare they hold up Canadian trade! They need to just be
happy that they even have jobs before these inconsequential humans are
replaced by truck driving robots. I find the dichotomy
interesting...the work they are doing is so important that they must get
back to work before they screw up the country...but how dare they
expect more money and don't they know they're lucky they even have a job
and how dare they actually think they matter? Joseph Heller would be
proud.

Honestly, this "don't politicize the Olympics" thing has got to stop. If the IOC didn't hand the Olympics over to despotic regimes looking to prove their political might then we wouldn't need to "politicize the Olympics".

"When the pipeline leaks/tanker sinks, we'll just clean it up." Looks
like the area around the Exxon Valdez has finally recovered. It only took 25 years...but it recovered. Mostly.

This guy does not think Vic Toews should have been named a judge. He suggests that the $288,000 per year salary, plus full MP pension, should help pay for his messy, expensive divorce though. Love the quotes of opposition MP Toews complaining about the Liberals appointing Liberals as judges. Totally different this time.

Oh boo hoo. Gun owners aren't allowed to own one specific type of gun.
Sounds like the beginnings of tyranny to me. You know, the kind of
tyranny that takes away your guns. Not the type of tyranny that
arbitrarily ends debate on issues, forces through gigantic Omnibus
bills, changes election laws to suit themselves, perpetrates voter
fraud, etc.

This story about the mother of a soldier who committed suicide receiving a $0.01 cheque from the government really lays bare Internet commenters
true prejudices.Conservative - Shame on the incompetent bureacrat for allowing this to happen.Liberal - Shame on the incompetent Harper Government for allowing this to happen.

An American general points out that you need fancier, more expensive planes to protect the fancy, expensive planes we're thinking of buying from the Americans. If not, they're kind of useless.

I've often wondered how banks can screw up, hand people's money to
scammers, and not immediately be fully responsible. This guy fought BMO for months over money they handed over during a pretty blatant scam.

Brad Butt, the MP who said he saw voter fraud taking place in the form
of campaign employees pulling voter ID cards from the trash and then
using them to fraudulently vote, now says that he saw no such thing. Is
this not troubling? Is this a statement you can just back away from by
saying you "misspoke". Were new laws not drafted to prevent this from
happening?

Oh. This is fresh. It's not enough to claim that it's American money
funding the anti-pipeline coalition in BC. It used to be the evil
American hippies with no skin in the game that want to see the pipeline
fail. But now...now somehow it's worse. It's American big oil tricking Canadians into scrapping their own pipeline because they want the oil
for themselves. The same American companies that control the majority
of the Oils Sands, right? So...they don't want this pipeline so they
can sell the oil in the US rather than they sell the oil in China?
Interesting. Note that the author of this article is pretty much a BC Liberal Government shill who seems to be the driving force behind the
astro-turf "British Columbians for Prosperity". Where do you get your
money, assholes? Looks like somebody has followed their
money...straight to the long term Oil Industry folks who started this
organization.

I know that nobody ever said anything positive about child sex offenders and made it out alive. But, especially since we seem more than eager to make kids that forward pictures of classmates "child sex offenders", I worry what this legislation might mean. I just don't think that making it impossible for a certain breed of criminal to re-integrate into society might not be to the benefit of anybody.

Garth Turner shows why Justin Trudeau is correct - The StatsCan report
on middle class wealth increasing is solely based on real estate values.
Yes, some people are sitting on fat (on paper) Real Estate values.
This hardly defines the return of the middle class.

If you complain about everything, people will stop listening. This
story points out that taxpayers have paid for $130,000 in meals for Conservative staffers since 2010. Who cares? What kind of deadbeat
employer doesn't pick up the tab for employee meals at specific work
events? $7000 for pizza for 330 people during a professional
development event? So...$21 per person? Who cares. This is not the
sort of thing we should be worried about. More Conservative lunch expenses, this set directly linked to the Prime Minister.

There seems to be some agreement between the Feds and the Provinces about the Canada Job Grant plan. Nobody seems too sure what it is though.

I've been thinking a similar train of thought to this story over the
last few days. It comes from the question "Will NHL owners allow NHL
players to compete in the next Olympics?" It just seems absurd. I
understand that NHL owners are paying NHL players obscene amounts of
money to play hockey for their team. But the statement seems to imply
some kind of ownership over the very being of the person/athlete. It's
strange to me. Further to that, this Grantland article points out the
near impossibility of athletes to protest much of anything due to their
meager earnings and subservience to corporate sponsors.

An interesting Snowden/Greenwald article outlines how western
intelligence agencies (the British GCHQ in this case) use dirty tricks
to discredit political activists and protesters. As somebody says
somewhere, it's pretty scary that the full might of the government can
arbitrarily decide that you're a bad apple and your life should be
ruined. Okay. That's my paraphrase.